Knowing the year your Android phone was manufactured may not seem like a very important piece of information, but you can use that four-digit number in a variety of ways. Maybe you’re not sure if your phone is still under warranty. Maybe you’ve been using your phone for so long that you’ve earned an upgrade from your service provider. Or maybe you want to pair your phone with another device, but that device only works with phones from a certain era. What is a completely useless piece of information in one moment can become vital technological information in another.
Of course, putting the burden on the owner to know when the phone was made is not a very good thing. People already need to remember enough numbers in their daily lives, from passwords to appointment times to the amount of money in their bank accounts. That’s why cell phone companies have developed various ways of showing you how to find this information when you need it. In the case of Android phones, since not all phones are created equal, there are different ways to get this information. Here are ways on how you can find out the year of your phone.
How to Check the Age of Your Android Phone via Settings
The most common way to determine what year your Android phone is is through your device’s settings app. No matter which version of Android you have, your phone has a settings app.
Open your Settings app. Within this app, there will be an option called something like “About Phone”, select it. You will see various information such as what version of your operating system you have, the serial number of the phone, and the year in which the phone was manufactured or purchased.
While this is a common way to determine the model year of your Android phone, it doesn’t apply to every Android phone. These settings are not a workaround for Androids. Depending on your phone model, you may not find this information in your settings. If so, then you will have to switch to another method to find this date.
How to Check the Age of Your Android Phone via Special Codes
Android phones have an unusual function where users can enter special codes to access certain information or perform an action on the phone. One of the many benefits of this function is that you can find out what year your phone is.
Open the keypad as if you were going to make a phone call. Enter one of the following two codes on the keypad, but you do not need to press the call button:
197328640
197328640
One of them should open the service menu of your phone. Here you will try to find your phone’s manufacturing information:
Menu > Version Information > Hardware Versions > Read Manufacturing Data
If this doesn’t work, it may be because of the model of the phone you have.
